‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but Secret Ree’ll have to write another bark out for us with your name on it.’
‘Oh honestly, John!’ Caroline said.
But all the same she didn’t refuse. I’d won that one easily and I thought to myself, now was the moment to act like we were the big ones.
‘Why don’t you come up and see our buckling?’ I said. ‘We can give you some meat and fruit to eat before you walk back. You’d be welcome. Gela, could you run up and get the fire going?’
And that was the agreement made between us and Family. I could imagine the story already: John and Caroline Agree.
27
Tina Spiketree
‘That’ll never last,’ I told John. ‘She won’t be able to control David and his lot that long. I’m not sure she even means to keep the deal herself.’
‘Of course it won’t last,’ he said shortly, ‘but it’ll hold for a bit, and that’ll give us some time.’
He looked tired. He looked tired tired.
‘And we need time,’ he said. ‘We need all the time we can get, if we’re going to get ourselves ready for Snowy Dark.’
I took his hand, sort of expecting that he’d shake me off again, but funnily enough he didn’t. He squeezed my hand back and later on, when we went to lie down on our skins under the cavelanterns, we reached out to one another and had a little slide together, not like we’d done before, all panting and sweating and grabbing, not like newhairs normally do at all, but slow and quiet like you sometimes see grownups doing in the starflowers, grownups who’ve known each other and been friends for a long time, having a little slip and a little chat and a little cuddle before going back to their groups again.
John was right about that agreement. We stuck to our side of it – we even sent a few kids back that tried to come over to us after those first five wakings – and it did give us some time. In fact it lasted ten periods or so, more than a whole wombtime, and in that time we got two more little bucklings, and the first one grew big, and we made all three of them into horses that would let us put things on their backs, and would come when we called them and would nuzzle up against us with their cool dry feelers when they wanted us to feed them.
And we got more skins, and we made wraps for all of us (there were twenty-one of us now, including five more girls who came over in those five wakings after the agreement: Martha and Lucy London, Julie, Angie and Candy Blueside). And some of the girls got pregnant, and Janny and Clare had babies, the first born outside Family. And John went up many times to Snowy Dark, usually with Gerry, sometimes with me, sometimes with others, and stayed up there often for a whole waking and a whole sleeping above the line of the ice and snow, figuring out how to keep alive up there, how to make the footwraps better, how to use spears point down in the snow to stop from slipping over, and how to tie people together with ropes so if one began to slip the others could hold them back. In fact he’d often hardly got down to where there were warm trees and bright lanternflowers and people to talk to, before he started busying about again, looking for dry wraps and rope and spears to take up once more to icy Dark.
It was like things were back to front with John, I sometimes thought. It was like he felt more comfortable and safe with cold and dark and lonely than he did with ordinary and friendly and warm. Ordinary waking-by-waking stuff seemed to make him restless and uneasy: the chit-chat, the joking about, the little arguments, the kids, the chores. (They do say Tommy was like that too. The first Tommy, I mean, the father of us all. They say he was afraid of his own family, though he’d been happy happy to spend his time in sky, where there was nothing to breathe outside the thin metal of the starship, and nothing to touch, and nothing that was kind or warm at all.)
So John kept himself busy going up to Dark. But for the rest of us, things went on pretty much like they had done back in Family, except for the fact that there were fewer of us, and that we were all young, and that we were living up on the slopes by Neck of Cold Path Valley, and that when we lay down to sleep we only heard the streams and forest, and not the sound of other groups coming and going around us.
Then one waking it all completely changed.
It happened when a bunch of us were out in forest, just outside of Valley Neck. There was me and John and Gerry and Dix and Harry and Jeff, along with the first and biggest of our three little bucklings. John had given Snowy Dark a rest that waking because we’d all agreed Jeff would try and ride whole of this trip on the buck’s back. He’d never ridden any of them for more than a short time before – he’d certainly never tried to ride one to really get anywhere – and John wanted to know how it would work out if Jeff rode a buck for a whole waking. He wanted to know it badly badly, because he was starting to realize that there was really no chance of us getting up and across Snowy Dark unless we could use woollybucks like Jeff had suggested, to guide us, to light our way, and to carry stuff for us.
Anyway, this little trip was meant to be more of a scavenge than a hunt, but when we’d been walking for a bit we saw a whole bunch of stonebucks off through forest, four or five of them at least. It was too good a chance of meat for us to miss, but me and Jeff and the little woollybuck weren’t up to running and spearing. My arm was in a buckskin sling because I’d fallen on the ice a few wakings back and twisted it, Jeff couldn’t run at all, and the buck had never been asked before to do anything but slowly walk with him on its back. So all the others went off Rockiesway after that little herd of stonebucks, leaving me and Jeff and the little buck behind.
I didn’t mind. I felt like taking it easy. I walked along next to the buck with Jeff on its back, and we looked for stumpcandy and low hanging fruits that could be picked without climbing. Jeff had a name for the animal. He called it Brownhorse, and he said ‘he’, not ‘it’, when he spoke about it. And now as we wandered along, he made woollybuck sounds from time to time as if he was trying to talk to it. But I felt kind of awkward with the creatures still. I didn’t like their flat flat eyes with those green glints inside them. Nor those feelers round their mouths. So I just walked along beside it, not saying much and just thinking my own thoughts. Truth be told I didn’t feel that comfortable with Jeff either, though his eyes were big and deep deep and not flat at all.
For himself, Jeff didn’t seem to need me there. He just sat quietly on the woollybuck’s back – him on the little buck was not much higher than I was walking on my own feet – and stared around him with those big big eyes, holding onto its wool with his hands and sometimes leaning forward and patting the soft warm lantern on its head.
Hrum, hrum, went the animal softly when he did that, and Jeff would repeat the same sound back to it. Hrum, hrum.
And then suddenly a glass-tip spear came flying through the air and landed – thunk – deep in the buck’s flesh, just in front of Jeff’s leg. It must have gone straight into one of its hearts because the green-black blood came spraying out like hot sap out of a cut tree. The animal sank down in a trembling heap and Jeff fell tumbling off it.
‘Good shot, Met,’ said a big deep voice from the trees. ‘Good good shot.’
It was big fat Dixon Blueside, and here he was, right up by Valley Neck, way way past Lava Blob where he and everyone else from Family were supposed to stop. With him were David Redlantern’s little buddy Met, and another silly brainless newhair boy called John Blueside. They all three came running over, laughing, to finish off the little buck that was shivering and threshing about on the ground.
‘What are you doing?’ I yelled at them. ‘This is our buck and you aren’t even supposed to be here.’
‘Leave him alone!’ Jeff screamed at them. ‘Leave my Brownhorse alone!’
I’d never seen him angry like that. He’s normally so calm, like he’s looking down on Eden from some faraway place from where everything can be clearly seen and everything can be forgiven and understood.
‘Brownhorse?’ mocked Dixon, driving his spear deep into the animal’s quivering side, pulling it out, driv
ing it back in. ‘Brownhorse? Since when has a woollybuck got a bloody name?’
His two followers laughed.
‘Get off him!’ Jeff shouted. He had got up to his feet, and was trying to pull Dixon away from the buck.
Dixon’s face darkened.
‘You’ll get off me if you know what’s good for you, you little clawfoot creep.’
But Jeff wouldn’t let go until the two boys took hold of him and threw him to the ground. Even so he made three big bloody scratches with his nails down Dixon’s hairy back.
‘We’ve got an agreement,’ I told them. ‘You’d better leave us now and clear off to far side of Lava Blob. That was the deal we made with your Family Head. That was the deal that was written down.’
‘I’ll come to you in a minute, my little darling,’ Dixon said. ‘But right now we’re talking to clawfoot Jeff.’
He hit Jeff hard with the butt end of his spear as he said this, and his little friends laughed and began to join in.
‘This is really happening, Jeff!’ Met mocked. ‘You really are here!’
‘Gela’s eyes, Dixon! Stop this!’ I shouted. ‘You’ll do for Jeff if you carry on like that!’
Jeff was curled up on the ground with his arm over his face, all bloody.
‘Who says we don’t want to do for him, my darling?’
And now it was my turn to try and drag them back, pulling at Dixon’s shoulder with my one good arm and my one hurt one.
He turned to me.
‘Looks like we’re going to have to teach you a lesson too,’ he said, and he looked at me like David Redlantern sometimes did, like I was a juicy piece of meat and he was hungry hungry hungry. He gave me a cruel smile.
‘Come on, lads,’ he said. ‘Creepy clawfoot’s going nowhere. Let’s deal with the pretty one first.’
So now they threw me onto the ground and straight away Dixon was on top of me, straddling me with his big fat thighs.
‘Pretty pretty Tina,’ he hissed. ‘Pretty, pretty, pretty. All that power it gives you, eh? All that power. You can get boys to do anything you want just by smiling at them. You can pick them up and put them down again just as you please. Slip one waking, cold shoulder the next. However the fancy takes you. However it suits you best. Isn’t that right?’
‘Get off me!’ I screamed.
‘So how do you like it when the power is the other way round, eh, Tina? How do you like it when fat old Dixon Blueside has the power?’
He looked at the boys.
‘Slip or no slip, eh? Slip or no slip with pretty pretty Tina? Which is it going to be, eh, my mates, now we’re the ones who’ve got the choice? Pretty Tina, who isn’t even in Family any more so the Laws don’t apply. Slip or no slip? Hmmm, let me see. Let me see. What’s it going to be?’
Michael’s names, I could feel his fat dick hardening under his wrap.
‘Slip her one, Dixie,’ said Met.
‘Yeah, slip her,’ said John Blueside, with his nasty little eyes all shiny with hate.
Dixon started to pull at my wrap. Well, I screamed and screamed and screamed and suddenly – blam! – my boys were back: John, Gerry, my Dix, my Harry, bursting out from the trees, yelling and shouting and waving spears and clubs.
‘Gela’s tits!’ went Met and John Blueside and off they ran, back towards Family as fast as they could, while Dixon was still clambering to his feet.
Dixon’s mouth was hanging open. He wasn’t smiling any more. He could see he was all alone against three angry boys and one big big angry man that was my brother Harry. (And Harry was a big man when it came to a fight, even if he was a kid in other ways.) Dixon gave me one look, one weird blank look – it was as if, just for a moment there, he was actually wondering if he could ask me for my help – and then he was off too, running through forest on his big fat heavy legs.
‘No you bloody don’t!’ said John, and he and Gerry and Harry were straight off after him.
But my Dix stopped, my gentle Dix, and he squatted down between me and Jeff.
‘Tina? Jeff? Are you okay?’
Jeff was sitting up. He was all bruised and bloody and trembling, but not badly hurt. He crawled to his Brownhorse.
‘Poor old Brownhorse,’ he murmured, and he made a soft little buck noise in his mouth. ‘Poor old Brownhorse.’
The creature was pretty much dead already. It wasn’t moving its limbs, just trembling a bit all over, but Jeff gently stroked its wool and went on talking to it like maybe its mother would have talked to it: Hrum, hrum, hrum.
And while Jeff stroked Brownhorse, Dix put his arm round my shoulder and gently stroked me. I really wasn’t badly hurt at all, just had a few scratches and bruises, and my hurt arm aching badly again like it had done when I first fell: nothing more than that. But something horrible had nearly happened to me, something that we didn’t even have a name for. I was shaking shaking all over, my teeth rattling together. And I leant my head on Dix’s shoulder and let him comfort me, while little Jeff tried to comfort the dying animal.
And pretty soon, back came John and Gerry and Harry.
As soon as we saw them we knew something big had happened. They’d changed. They’d changed completely. They were trembling worse than me, they were shaking all over, and their faces were all blotchy and twisted and puffed up, so you couldn’t tell if they were scared or angry or excited or ashamed or what, but you could see that whatever it was, it was big big big.
‘What?’ I demanded. ‘What? Gela’s heart, what have you done?’
‘Yeah, what’s happened?’ Dix asked, gently releasing me, and jumping to his feet.
John stared at him, like he was having difficulty seeing he was there.
‘We . . . er . . .’ he began, and then stopped.
‘You . . . er . . . what? Gela’s heart, John, tell us?’
‘We . . . we . . . did for them,’ he said.
He turned to me, then to Jeff, then to me again with weird wide staring eyes that he couldn’t keep still.
‘You what? You did for them? No, no, you couldn’t have. That wouldn’t . . . What? You did for them? You mean . . . What? . . . Like animals, you mean? All three? Like animals?’
We were the fifth generation of Eden, the fifth generation after Father Tommy and Mother Angela. But no one had ever killed another human being. No one, not ever.
‘Yeah, all three,’ said John. ‘I did for Dixon with my spear while he ran.’
His voice came out all jerky and strange.
‘Then . . . Then Harry did John Blueside. He turned to try and face us with his spear, but . . . Harry . . . Harry was on top of him with his club before he could throw it, and he did for him too. He cracked his head open. And . . . and . . . Met . . . well, Gerry did for him, didn’t you, Gerry? He did for him with his spear, like I did Dixon.’
John held up his own blackglass spear with his shaking hand, like it would do the rest of the talking for him. He touched the tip with his finger and held it out to show me the blood. Not greeny-black Eden blood, not blood born down in Underworld, not the blood you see when a spear comes out of a buck or a starbird or a bat, but real red blood that came down from sky. Real red blood from Earth.
‘We are here,’ said Jeff, like he’d been thinking carefully all this time about what dead Met had jeered at him, and was finally agreeing with him. ‘Yes, we really are here.’
28
John Redlantern
We didn’t have hollowbranch horns like they had in Family, but we’d made ourselves a drum out of a length of trunk and a bit of stonebuck skin. As soon as we’d got back to our camp – Gerry and Dix carrying Jeff between them to speed things up, and Harry and me carrying the dead buck Brownhorse – we got out the drum and Harry began to beat it, as hard and fast as he could.
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG . . .
He was frantic frantic. His eyes were staring, he was panting like he couldn’t get enough air, his face was pouring with sweat, and he banged that drum so hard
he nearly broke through the skin.
‘Easy, Harry. That’s enough, that’s enough,’ I told him. ‘We don’t want them guessing back in Family that something bad’s up.’
I didn’t feel much different from Harry myself, though. Every few seconds I heard the squelchy thud of my spear in Dixon Blueside’s back, the hissing noise of the air coming out from his lungs, the way he rolled over when I pulled it out, the choking gurgle when I shoved it right back again into his belly. But unlike Harry, I knew I had to get back in control of myself, or we’d all be done for.
‘They won’t miss Dixon and the others for another waking or two,’ I told everyone back at the caves.
Tall, grownup Gela Brooklyn was there, and her small little sister Clare with her baby on her hip, and Mike, and Suzie Fishcreek, and batfaced Janny, and Tina’s sister Jane, and Dave Fishcreek and Julie Blueside.
‘Not for another waking or two,’ I said. ‘And even then, they won’t know what’s happened. That’s why we had to do for all three of them, otherwise they’d have run straight back to David, and he’d have sent a whole lot more of them after us at once. We really had no choice. We really didn’t.’
I looked round at their shocked faces – Gela, Suzie, Janny, Dave, all of them – daring anyone to disagree.
‘As it is,’ I said, ‘we’ve got two wakings before anyone starts to worry, and by then a leopard or a fox will have got to the bodies, and then starbirds after that, so they won’t be able to tell any more that it was spears and a club that did for them. They’ll just be scattered bones.’
‘Yes, but their mates will guess, won’t they?’ Dix said. ‘David Redlantern and all of them.’
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